Much like last week’s post on reflection of the previous year, there are an unlimited number of ways you can approach planning for the year ahead.
My intention is not to prescribe a specific way to plan your 2025, but to inspire some new ideas based on the way I approach it.
If you didn’t catch last week’s post, I’d suggest starting there as reflecting on last year can really help inform how you plan for the upcoming year.
OK, like many people, I don’t have much faith in New Year’s Resolutions. The research is clear, New Year’s Resolutions don’t work. About half of all adults make resolutions and less than 10% manage to keep them for more than a few months.
The reason people aren’t able to keep their resolutions is because they make too many resolutions or their resolutions are unrealistic.
Also, many people suffer from what’s called “false hope syndrome” which is characterized by a person’s unrealistic expectations about how quickly they can change or how hard it will be to make behavior changes.
So what’s the difference between a New Year’s Resolution and planning for the upcoming year? I’m glad you asked. And I’m not sure that it will make sense to everyone, but it makes sense to me.
First of all, New Year’s Resolutions tend to be emotional in nature. A reaction to being dissatisfied with the status quo.
They usually start with something like: I wish I looked like Brad Pitt in Fight Club.
Planning means I have a goal in mind, it’s likely based on an insight from my reflections from last year, and there is a path to get there that is measurable. It’s also not driven purely by emotion, but there is a more pragmatic motivation.
Something like: I want to lose 10 lbs this year. I don’t love the way I look or feel. I know I ate out way too much last year so this year I’m going to eat at home at least 80% of the time and I’m scheduling workouts 3X a week on my calendar.
The former looks like more of a wish. The latter looks like something achievable with the details needed to accomplish that goal.
Now, just because I have a goal doesn’t mean that I know exactly how to achieve it. This is where getting some help from a professional comes in.
If I want to go to the gym and get jacked, I’m gonna need to reach out to a fitness coach as I have no idea how to go about that.
If I want to save money for retirement, I might want to reach out to a financial advisor because I’m not sure how much money to save or where to save/invest it.
You get the point.
In my experience (and those of my clients), having a goal grounded in reflection, and laying out a path to achieve that goal is the big difference between a NY’s resolution and planning for next year.
That doesn’t however address the endurance and patience needed to achieve some of the goals. Weight doesn’t come off in two weeks and you won’t have your financial nest egg after one month of saving. These goals take time (months and years) and if you’re not prepared to stick it out for the long haul, chances are you’ll give up.
We live in a world addicted to speed. Faster results, quicker fixes, the illusion of overnight success—this stuff gets sold to us daily. But for the things that really matter? The deep, meaningful, and transformative stuff? There’s no shortcut. They require endurance, patience, and a willingness to show up again and again, even when the finish line is nowhere in sight.
In the Buddhist tradition, there’s a concept called viriya, often translated as energy or effort. This is not working 12 hour days or hustle porn. It’s more like steady persistence—bringing your best effort to each moment, not because you’re guaranteed a reward, but because it’s the right thing to do.
Patience (khanti) is not passive waiting or resignation. Patience is active. It’s gritting your teeth, staying steady, and holding space for the discomfort of not being where you want to be yet. It’s recognizing that the slog is part of the process. In the rooms of recovery, we call this “trudging the road of happy destiny”.
Last week, I mentioned that I have a few projects/goals for 2025 that are important to me based on my reflection of 2024. Below are my goals and the WHY behind them. I have to have a sufficient WHY, or I will lose interest and drop these goals.
- Finish my second novel — WHY: I want to be a great writer. I want to continue to grow as a writer and become exceptional. Writing is the only way to get there.
- Find a literary agent that I really like and am excited to work with — WHY: I want to seek publishing for my work and I want an incredible collaborative relationship with the person that represents me and that work.
- Sit two (7-10 day) silent meditation retreats — WHY: Last year I only sat one retreat and I felt something missing. For me, sitting two retreats, somewhat evenly spaced out over the year, allows me to maintain a continuity of awareness that I find helpful. More peace, more contentment, more insight.
- Take two longer (2 weeks+) trips with Eva — WHY: We took a couple of shorter trips in 2024 that were super fun, but I’m craving longer periods of time with her outside of Nashville.
- Take on ~5 more clients — WHY: In 2024 I capped my client capacity at 10 and felt that I could definitely take on 50% more clients without sacrificing the time and attention I give them all. I can also still maintain a writing schedule as well as be present with my family and have time for service work in recovery.
- Grow this newsletter to 5K subscribers — WHY: My intent with this newsletter was to publish something truly useful. Being of service to others is my love language. I get to work with men and women in recovery, I get to work with coaching clients, and in this format, I get to share what I’ve learned with anyone who wants to read it. And odd as it may sound, likes, subscribes, paid subscribes, and comments are feedback on how my service work is impacting people. So, being able to impact a larger audience would be fulfilling for me in ways that my other service opportunities aren’t.
When I go back and review my list, I feel like that would be an amazing year! And you should too. Your list should elicit a little excitement to say the least.
What’s not on this list? Well, for one, I don’t have an income goal this year. Usually I do but I’ve learned something in the past few years which makes it incredibly difficult to predict how much I can make. Primarily, this is because I’m a new, unpublished writer which means I have no idea IF I can even get published, not to mention how much I might actually earn. I’m way too new in that game to reliably plan a revenue goal and accurately hit it.
Same is true for my work here on Substack. I’m not here to earn a living, but I can see where one might generate some portion of their income if they worked hard and wrote well.
My coaching income is a little more predictable, but it’s still hard to get super specific with it. I can have a goal/max of 15 clients (see above) but it’s likely that I’ll hover between 10 and 15 throughout the year. That’s a 33% difference that I can’t predict.
Also, conspicuously absent is any kind of fitness goal. That’s because I work with a fitness coach. He has my goals and designs workouts to support them. Essentially, I’m on the same path I was on mid 2024 so there’s nothing new to add there.
My point being I don’t need to add goals that don’t make sense to me just because I know most people have money and fitness goals. You do you.
My planning relies on reflection from the previous year, having a WHY for each of my goals that are pragmatic and don’t rely too much on my emotional state, and knowing that it might be a several months before I can achieve my goals which requires endurance and patience.
OK, that’s a little peek into how I created some goals for 2025. Like I said, I don’t want to prescribe a way for you to plan your upcoming year, my hope is to just inspire a new/different way of setting goals for yourself that works for you…and hopefully this helps!